New Campaign: Character Creation Guidelines Did I miss anything?

[Mongobear]

So I just wrote up a 2 page essay more or less on how I would like my players to generate their characters for our new campaign we plan to start in a few weeks. I would like your personal opinions on them, as to whether I am being fair enough or not. As well as whether I am missing anything important on my "ban-list" or other areas.




Character Creation Guidelines

The following is a list of methods and source books I would like everyone to use in an effort to have characters as balanced as possible between each person.

Ability Score Generation

All characters' ability scores will be rolled ideally in front of the DM using 4d6 re-rolling all results of 1, and keeping the best 3 results. If a set of stats does not total at least a +8 cumulative modifier, or have any score above a 15, you may choose* to re-roll the entire set, or generate your ability scores using the Point Buy method with a 38 point budget. For those unfamiliar with the system, it is in the D&D 3.5 DMG on page 169.

*Note: Once you decide on a method for re-generating your ability scores, that method is final, you cannot generate a second array of ability scores, then decide to use the Point Buy method.

Race/Class Choice Sources

For the purposes of creating your character, I would like everyone to keep all of their character concepts within the confines of my list of official D&D 3.5e "Expanded Core Materials" and their choice of a single official D&D 3.5e "Splashbook" of the PCs choice.

In addition, characters begin play at level 4 with enough experience to place them exactly half way to level 5. This buffer zone of experience is for the purposes of LA Buyback, Crafting your own gear, Odd Templates/Rituals with an XP cost. My only rule covering this is that you run anything extremely odd by me first, and that your character remains ECL 4 whenever we begin play.

I would like for everyone to also keep their racial choices/templates to a minimum of a single choice, no template stacking or Template + LA Race combinations, you get ONE choice. In addition, I would prefer it if you keep your characters within the realms of humanity, that is to say they are small or medium size, have 2 legs, 2 arms and one head with the same general anatomy as a Human being. A race with something akin to Powerful Build is fine, however permanently being Large or larger is not.

Please dont make a character that consists of a mass of black pulsating tentacles just because its only LA +2. You must be capable of either completely passing as one of the Core PHB/EPH Races, or with a reasonable amount of refluffing on my part, can be made into a mostly Humanoid creature.

This is not all set in stone, and anyone who comes to me with a thought out and generally feasible concept that requires material from another official rulebook may get my approval, but no more than one additional "Splashbook" for my own sanity please. This is also not the norm, and you should not just automatically assume I will ok something because you thought out an in-depth reason as to why it can/should be allowed.

Expanded Core Materials
PHB 1 & 2
DMG 1 & 2
MM 1-5
Expanded Psionics Handbook
Races of... Series
Original 5 Complete... Series
ToB, ToM, and MoI**

**Note: These books, Tome of Battle, Tome of Magic, and Magic of Incarnum are extremely complex compared to the regular Core books, anyone who chooses to use them should be capable of playing the classes involved without needing the book in front of them at every minute to recheck how something works.

Specific Banned* Material
Any D&D 3.5e Campaign specific rule books
Any non-updated D&D 3.0e Rule book
"Tier 0" Infinite combos and loopholes
3rd Party/Wiki Anything
Unearthed Arcana "Generic Classes"
Anything involving Taint or Sanity mechanics
Magical Locations/Rituals
Anything else I find I may have missed giving someone an unfair advantage over other players who "didn't think of it" when making a character.

*Note: Other than the material just listed, pretty much any D&D 3.5e rule book is open game , with one major rule: Please run any of your ideas by me before completely settling on what you want to play, or if you have a question/need advice on how to build your character.

[kardar233]

Those all look pretty reasonable. I'm never a fan of limiting books, but you have a reasonably large core set there so it wouldn't be awful.

Races of Eberron is both a "Races Of..." and a campaign specific book; would it be allowed?

On that note, there's a lot of good material in the campaign-specific books that is not necessarily specific to the setting; Champions of Valor has some really great Paladin and Ranger support, for example.

Would you consider putting Unearthed Arcana as part of your core set? The ACFs and tools in there are really useful in nearly any build.

How do you feel about web material?

[Mongobear]

I would consider Unearthed Arcana and Web Enhancement material from WotC as part of the sourcebook they reference. My main definition of "Splashbooks" is stuff like Draconomicon, Dragon Magic, Spell Compendium, Magic Item Compendium, Weapons of Legacy, Book of Exalted Deeds and any other non-campaign specific book not covered by the "Extended Core Material" list or explicitly banned.

Races of Eberron would depend entirely on the specific instance of what they wanted to use. Like, the Eberron races are also present in MM3, so they're allowable, but stuff such as Dragonmarks or setting specific classes/mechanics are not.

I agree I usually do not like being limited on possible resources, but for instances such as "Champions of Valor" I would make it a judgement call based on what specific thing you wanted, and also hold that to your one "Splashbook" choice should I allow it.

The campaign this is meant for is also intended to be more focused on non-combat encounters and RPing the majority of any interaction instead of just rolling 20s for conversation skills, I don't want players to focus on creating a T1 Mailman and then be a complete derp when it comes to interactions. I would like them to create characters based on the idea of "Fluff background is more important than rules text" where I would value something normally terrible in the eyes of almost everyone like a Rage Mage based on the fact that the sheer idea of one is awesome, even though they are completely atrocious in actual play.